“Guns?” she repeated.
Eli, two steps ahead of her, jabbed one forefinger upstairs. “Come on.”
When she arrived at the first landing, a uniformed police officer blocked her way, all elbows and nose, one hand worrying the nightstick looped at her side, the other poised over her holstered gun.
“Ma’am? Are you Jane Ryland, the occupant of unit three?” The officer cocked her head toward the third floor, kept her hands at the ready. Not letting Jane pass. “May I see some identification, please?”
“This is Jane,” Eli stomped one supersized running shoe on the carpeted step, and pointed at the cop. “Like I told you!”
“Yes, ah, officer, ah, thanks, Eli.” Jane patted him on the shoulder, every fraying nerve in her body straining to get past this uniformed obstacle. Fine time to think about security. She scanned the officer’s plastic name badge. “Officer Guerriero. Listen. I’m Jane Ryland, I have my ID right here, I’m trying to dig it out of my bag now, as you see. Can you at least tell me what’s going on?”
“Ma’am?” Patricia Guerriero raised her chin. “We are still securing the scene, so if you would be so kind as to-”
“Jane!” Neena’s head appeared over the wooden railing of the next floor up. Baby Sam’s bright blue cap peeked out of the Snugli slung over his mother’s shoulders. “Officer Guerriero, that’s Jane, I can vouch, and your partner up here says it’s all good, send her up. You recognize her from TV. Right? Jane. Ryland. You know. The reporter.”
Officer Guerriero narrowed her eyes, wary, as if she thought Jane and Neena, and perhaps their nine-year-old accomplice, were trying to pull something sneaky on her.
“Here. See?” Jane waved her driver’s license at the cop, hoping it would allow her to get by this gorgon and into her own damn apartment.
Guerriero studied her license as if there was going to be a test.
Maybe she would panic.
“Officer? Can you tell me? Did someone break into my apartment?”
“She’s showing an ID, sir.” Guerriero ignored Jane, talked into the cigarette-pack radio velcroed to her uniformed shoulder. “Appears in order.”
Jane heard the crackling transmission from upstairs. In about ten seconds she was going to-
“Okay, ma’am. You’re clear.” Guerriero handed back her license and Jane grabbed it, already at full speed. Up the stairs, around the landing, past Neena, and up to the third floor.
Her door was wide open. Wide. Open.
She stood, paralyzed.
Eli grabbed her hand again, and Neena’s arm went across her shoulders.
“You okay, honey?” Neena smelled of baby powder. Sam gurgled, kicked his tiny foot into her side.
“Not so much,” Jane said.
Who’d been in her apartment? Why? Maybe was still inside, hiding. What if Jane had been home, instead of on that excursion with Tuck? Would the person have still come in?
“Miz Ryland?” The upstairs cop stood, arms crossed, in the center of the round oriental rug in her entryway. The top of his billed police hat almost grazed the dangling crystals of her mini-chandelier, and his size alone made Jane feel safer. He could crush the bad guy with one hammy fist.
If there was a bad guy.
“There’s no intruder in your apartment, Miz Ryland. We’ve checked thoroughly, and nothing appears disturbed. Now. We’d like you to take a look around and see whether anything seems out of place, even whether there’s something that’s here now that wasn’t when you-”
The cop’s voice was velvet, soothing, as he went on to describe how he’d checked every closet, every room, every possible hiding place. But now, for some reason Jane’s eyes smarted with tears. She was about to cry? Now? When this hunk of a cop was telling her it was okay?
“But, ma’am?” The officer adjusted the patent leather brim of his hat. “I need to ask you. When you left this morning? Are you certain you locked the door? If so, does anyone else have a key?”
40
At least no one would disturb her. Not with everything going on at the Brannigan this morning. Sitting at her desk, Ella thought yet again about what she planned to say, hoping-hoping-hoping that Jane Ryland would answer her phone at the Register. Of course it had been Jane at the Dunkin’ Donuts. It seemed like she didn’t want to be recognized, so Ella had played along. But it would be such a relief to tell. If Jane didn’t answer, Ella would leave a message.
She felt the cell phone, cool against her cheek, and heard her own shallow breathing, her palm already damp with uncertainty.
The phone rang. And again. If Jane was there, if Jane wasn’t there, either way would be fine. Listening to the silence, Ella let her gaze stray through the open inner office door, to what was, until yesterday, Lillian Finch’s private office. Was it just yesterday? Ella herself had been in there Sunday, looking through those documents. And now…
Pull yourself together, Ella. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re doing your job. You’re helping.
“Good afternoon, the Register,” a voice said.
Afternoon already? How long had she been sitting here? She asked for Jane, and heard a click and a buzz, like she was being transferred.
Maybe Ella should have said something at the Dunkin’ Donuts, instead of pretending. Because who didn’t know Jane Ryland? Ella knew the whole scoop. She’d been fired from Channel 11 for protecting a source and losing her TV station a million dollars. Something like that. Then it turned out Jane was in the right. Something like that. Then she’d read Jane’s stories in the Register about that mess in the last election. And about the Bridge Killer.
First ring.
Anyone who’d gotten fired for protecting a source, well, that meant she was trustworthy. That’s probably why Tucker Cameron trusted her. Now Ella would trust her. What other option did she have?
It felt like Lillian Finch was in the room. That faint fragrance of lilies of the valley she always wore, seemed like she could still smell it, just a whisper, just a hint. She could see the white roses on Lillian’s desk browning around the edges, the rest were full and white and plump, just as if nothing had happened. But they’d die soon. Too.
Second ring. Jane must not be in her office. Darn. She swiveled in her desk chair, putting her back to the door, watching the tatted curtains puff gently in the heat coming through the latticed radiator cover. She had her thumb up to her mouth, realized she was chewing the edge of it. She took it out, surprised.
Third ring. She was doing the right thing, no question.
Mr. Brannigan was dead. Ms. Finch was dead. Lillian had made a bad mistake, an incomprehensible mistake, and now she was dead.
“This is Jane Ryland,” the familiar voice said. Ella smiled, hearing it. Jane Ryland helped people. “Thank you for calling us with a news tip, and we’re eager to hear your story. I’m away from my desk or on the other line right now so-”
Ella marshaled her thoughts, waiting for the beep.
“Um. Miss Ryland? Jane? This is Ella Gavin, I met you at the coffee shop with T-um, Miss Cameron? Of course I recognized you, but it seemed like you didn’t want me to. Anyway…”
This was getting off on the wrong foot. She was babbling, but she had to keep going.
“Um, the reason I’m calling is because I’m concerned that, well, you know, what Miss Cameron was worried about, being the wrong girl, and yes, I guess I agree that seems like it’s true.”
There. She said it.
“And since it is, what has me concerned is…”